


One last gift

by strikedawn



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Epilogue Mikleo, Fluff galore, M/M, Seraph Sorey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 11:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12934578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikedawn/pseuds/strikedawn
Summary: In which Sorey tries hard - too hard - to find his element... Only for it to find him instead.





	One last gift

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6 of the sormik advent calendar! Thank you flarelunari on tumblr for approaching me about this! My prompt was "fireplace".
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!

Sundown found Sorey sitting in front of the fireplace in his house of Elysia, looking at the flames deep in thought.

His day hadn’t been spectacularly hard nor long, but still Sorey felt tired. He had started feeling like this very early in the morning, when he had opened his eyes to a gray sky and no traces of sun in the mountainsides. There sight came with a dull ache in the muscles of his upper back, underneath his shoulder blades, and something sharp threatened to dig its way through his temples to reach his brain. It was the first time he had ever felt sick since becoming a seraph — he had always envied his family for going through seasons without catching a cold or sprouting a sudden fever, but he should have known that health like that came with a downside.

Seraphim didn’t become sick, but they lost energy or mana pretty quickly. He hadn’t realized during his time as the Shepherd because his companions hadn’t allowed him to see. All of them had pretended to forget their own limits, always fighting for as long and as hard as it was necessary. Even Mikleo, many centuries their junior, had never fallen behind when fighting. It was now, after his long nap and with his duties fulfilled, that Sorey felt new waves of gratitude towards his seraphim friends.

Because he was starting to experience the intense extenuation that came with using too much mana when your body wasn’t used to it. And he didn’t like it one bit

But the worst of it was, that Sorey had no idea _how_ he was using said mana. Because, despite having been awake for months, he still hadn’t found his element. He had tried everything without even thinking about it: he had stood in the tallest cliff of all Elysia, trying to find the faint flow of mana that Zaveid had told him to seek for in the wind. He had laid on his stomach with his ear pressed against the grass and hands deep in a puddle of mud to feel the Earthpulses that Edna had deemed ‘ _completely_ necessary and essential to master the earth element’, while trying to kick Mikleo in the shin for laughing at him (it had turned out Edna had just wanted to make fun of him; she had known from the beginning he wasn’t an earth seraph). Sorey had even let Mikleo submerge him waist deep in the very same pond they used to swim in as kids, his friend holding his hands over the water’s surface while he told him about the power behind the currents and the difficulty of fighting against the moon for control over the tides.

That had been the biggest fail of all of Sorey’s attempts. Mikleo had taken the matter seriously and with grace, while Sorey had been trying too hard not to blush at the way water drops clung to Mikleo’s skin, to the new width of his naked shoulders. An unfamiliar warmth had set low in Sorey’s stomach in that moment, his hands closing on tightly around Mikleo’s. There hadn’t been any mana for him to control, but there had been something— an urge, a prickle underneath his skin, that only became worse as he followed the lines of Mikleo’s defined jaw with his eyes…

Yeah. That one had been a fail as well.

The only thing that was left for him to try was fire. Lailah would be coming to Elysia in a few days to help him, but Sorey could barely wait. Mikleo had said it would be better to wait for Sorey to find his element before going out to explore the world, in case something happened. If there was something more dangerous than a hellion out there, it was a seraph with uncontrollable mana.

And, apparently, napping for a few centuries with the Lord of the Seraphim made you have pretty uncontrollable mana.

So Sorey had sat down in front of his fireplace as the sun went down behind the mountainsides of his home village, alone, eyes burning with how intently he was looking at the fire. He hadn’t started anything just yet, hadn’t tried to look for any mana at his reach, but Sorey didn’t feel any differently towards this element compared to the others.

‘ _Come on,’_ Sorey thought, reaching a hand forward until he started to feel warmth lick at the tips of his fingers. _‘I want to set off with Mikleo already—‘_

Sorey closed his eyes, trying to feel something for himself. His human memories were intact in his brain, but the feelings behind them were hard to access, sometimes. Still, he tried hard to recall the feeling of using the fire armatus, how fire and flames had sprouted at his will from the blade of his sword. Could that be? Would he need something like his sword again to channel the mana? Because, no matter how hard he tried right now, in front of his fireplace, there was no thread for him to grab, no puppet strings for him to control the fire. It made his heart give a painful beat in his chest.

‘ _Maybe it’s just that I’m not experienced enough,’_ Sorey wondered, eyes still closed. He could remember Mikleo barely holding up a small bubble of water over his tiny palm when they were kids, the outlines shaky and uneven. And, in a way, Sorey was a newborn, was he not? Not matter how impatient he was to travel with Mikleo, maybe he just had to take it easy…

‘ _But, the ruins! The ruins, and the new villages and cities, the people who can see seraphim now— I want to see it all.’_

_‘I want to travel the world with Mikleo by my side, like we’ve always dreamed—‘_

“Sorey!”

Sorey jumped on his spot, pain shooting up from his fingers, his palm. His eyes opened as he pressed his own hand against his chest, but that only made sharp pain spring up from his fingers, and he let out a small, pained gasp. He looked down to find his fingers angry red and slightly burnt, enough to make him wince when he so much as moved his hand.

Mikleo had been the one to shout his name. Sorey saw a blur of white from the corner of his eye, and suddenly his friend was there, gently holding Sorey’s hand in both of his and letting his healing artes calm the pain on Sorey’s skin.

“What were you thinking, Sorey!?” Mikleo was saying, not taking his eyes away from the healing process, as if he was worried he would miss the smallest of blisters. But Sorey’s eyes couldn’t look away from him; he could see his worried expression making the violet of his eyes slightly darker, the hard line of his mouth as his spoke.

He looked so gorgeous Sorey even forgot about his own pain.

It wasn’t difficult to see Mikleo had changed over the years, both mentally and physically. Not on the important bits, the bits that made him the Mikleo Sorey had grown up with — those were still there for Sorey to love, down to all the ticklish spots that Sorey knew so well. But Mikleo had grown. He had matured. He had thrown weight onto his back and held it up as valiantly as Atlas had, supporting the weight of a world Sorey was fighting to purify. For centuries, Sorey and Mikleo had been two sides of a coin, working through different means to achieve the same goal.

To have a world in which their dream could become true.

And all that effort had changed them both. Sorey knew he himself had changed, that his sleep with Maotelus, the things he had dreamt of, had changed him in more ways than one as well. But Mikleo— It was as if Sorey could find something new in him every day. Like how his hair now fell from a high ponytail in all of its curly glory, brushing against his cheeks with softness, and whipping through the air when Mikleo turned his head sharply. Or how his eyes always looked a little bit surprised still, when Sorey called his name whenever Mikleo was deep in thought. As if a part of Mikleo wasn’t used still to have Sorey back.

“…Sorey, are you even listening to me?”

“Huh?”

Sorey hadn’t been listening at all. He had been looking at Mikleo’s mouth, the slightly chapped upper lip, the fuller lower one. And he was still looking at it when Mikleo sighed, shaking his head slowly as he squeezed Sorey’s now healed hand.

“I asked why the hell would you stick your hand into the fireplace? Did you drop something?” Mikleo turned his head to look into the flames, the light of the fire casting warm shadows over his features. He suddenly looked to be all angles and high cheekbones, eyes ablaze, and Sorey felt his breath catch in his chest.

“I—“ Sorey started after an awkward cough. “I was trying to see if fire was my element. Before Lailah got here. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“Yes, showing Lailah your charred hand would be an incredible surprise,” Mikleo replied with a roll of his eyes. Their gazes finally met then, and Sorey saw Mikleo relax immediately, his gaze turning slightly softer. “Does it hurt now?”

Sorey smiled at him, relaxing as well. No matter how even more beautiful Mikleo had become, nothing could take away the feeling of comfortability that always bloomed in Sorey’s heart when Mikleo was by his side “It doesn’t! Thank you, Mikleo!”

“Honestly… I leave you alone for one day and you do this—“

Sorey laughed lowly, scratching the back of his neck. Mikleo had left early in the morning for an errand in the new village by the outskirts of Aroundight forest, Sorey preferring to stay around and ask the other seraphim of his village for help in his training. None of them had managed to make him advance on it, but at least it had been an excuse to spend more time with them. He had missed them lots during his absence.

“My mind slipped to other things while I was trying to find mana in the fire. It’s not like I was trying to burn myself on purpose—!”

Mikleo smirked at that. “I wouldn’t put it past you. But what were you thinking about then?”

Sorey felt more warmth rush to his cheeks. There was no way he was telling Mikleo he had caused himself burns while thinking about how the last handful of centuries had changed Mikleo in new, exciting ways.

“Oh, hey, your skin is really warm,” Mikleo suddenly said, returning his gaze to the hand of Sorey’s that he was still holding. “Are you okay? You didn’t extenuate yourself, did you?”

‘ _No. I’m just thinking about you.’_

“Uh… I, hehe, I don’t think so—?”

“Honestly—“ Mikleo shook his head again, letting Sorey’s head go and moving to his feet. Only then did Sorey realize that Mikleo was only wearing his white pants and his long-sleeved, black shirt. He must have gone to his house first before coming to Sorey’s. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

Mikleo only took a couple of minutes to come back, but when he did, Sorey perked up at the things he was carrying in his arms. As far as he could see, the things were a big, soft-looking blanket and a book Sorey had never seen before, the leather covers worn and showing the telltale signs of having been reread multiple times. Once he reached his side, Mikleo gave the book to Sorey without a word, and Sorey quickly turned it around to look at the title.

“Here,” Mikleo was saying meanwhile, unfolding the blanket and draping it over Sorey’s shoulders. “I don’t want you catching a fever—“

“The legend of Shepherd Sorey!?” Sorey interrupted him, turning his head around to look at Mikleo with big, shiny eyes. “They wrote a book about me!?”

“…They wrote hundreds of them,” Mikleo explained with a roll of his eyes, but his voice sounded fond anyway. Then he moved to sit by Sorey’s side in front of the fire, one of his knees pressed against his own chest. “But this is my favorite, of all of them. I saw someone in the village carrying it around and I asked them if I could borrow it for you. Funnily enough, I don’t own a copy myself…”

“This… This is so cool!” Sorey exclaimed, opening the book to give a quick look to the pages. He saw some illustrations as the pages rolled, but he didn’t stop to look at them. He would save them for later, so as not to spoil himself this version of his own story. “Do they talk about the drake in Marlind? And the bridge? Oh, are you in here as well—!?”

Mikleo narrowed his eyes, but he couldn’t hide the chuckle that escaped from his lips. “Of course I’m in there. I was there throughout your whole journey, wasn’t I?”

Something warm coiled inside Sorey’s chest, making him bump his shoulder against Mikleo’s. “Of course you were.”

“Here,” Mikleo said, reaching out to take the book and show Sorey one of the illustrations. In there, sketched in black and white, the Sorey and Mikleo from centuries ago fought against invisible enemies with their backs pressed together, sword and staff raised, ready to attack. The warm feeling in Sorey’s chest burned like a flame upon seeing it, the tips of his fingers brushing against the delicate lines of Mikleo’s portrait.

“…We looked pretty cool together.”

Mikleo snorted. “We still do. Just wait until we start traveling around. You’ll see what I mean.”

Sorey smiled happily at that— but then his smile fell into a frown, eyes moving back to the fire. “That is, if I finally find my element. Which… doesn’t seem to gonna be happening any time soon. Was it this hard for you when you were a kid?”

“Mm, no, not _this_ hard,” Mikleo muttered, hand flying to hold his own chin as he thought. “I remember feeling different whenever I was near water. As if it had an effect on me. But once Kyme explained everything to me it all made sense…”

“Ah…” Sorey gripped the lapels of his blanket, despite not being that cold. “I see.”

“Sorey, don’t berate yourself for this,” Mikleo told him, putting a gloveless hand on his arm. “You’ll find your element. You’re a seraph. And you shouldn’t rush this, since it’ll come to you when the time comes anyway—“

“But I want to travel with you!” Sorey exclaimed, turning to look at Mikleo again. “You’ve told me so much about this new world… And the only thing keeping us from it is me not being able to find an element! It’s… frustrating.”

“Sorey…” Mikleo leaned closer then, until their shoulders simply rested together. When he tilted his head, Mikleo’s ponytail fell over his shoulder, catching the warm lights of the fireplace. “The world isn’t going anywhere. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for you to find your element. We will be out there one day, I promise.”

Sorey looked down, at the drawing of themselves on the book in Mikleo’s lap. “But what about you? You can’t… wait around for me to find my powers. It’s unfair to you.”

Mikleo snorted again, elbowing Sorey softly on the side, who yelped. It seemed like Mikleo hadn’t forgotten any of Sorey’s ticklish spots either. “This kind of waiting is nothing compared to what I’ve done for centuries. I can handle it, Sorey.”

A shadow crossed over Sorey’s features. “So—“

The word didn’t even get a chance to be formed. Mikleo slapped his hand over Sorey’s mouth, loud and using more force than what he should have, but it got the desired effect. Sorey jumped and turned big, very green eyes in Mikleo’s direction.

“Hey!” He exclaimed form behind Mikleo’s hand, narrowing his eyes at him.

“No apologies,” Mikleo said, and his voice sounded so soft and sweet that Sorey’s expression softened in response as well. “And no thanking either. I waited because it was what I wanted to do. So stop looking so sad, okay?”

“‘M not sad,” Sorey mumbled, voice muffled still by Mikleo’s skin. After a small pause, Mikleo sighed and made to take his hand away—but Sorey was fast, and his fingers curled softly around Mikleo’s wrist before he could get too far away. They kept their hands in between them, Sorey’s thumb drawing half-moons on the inner part of Mikleo’s wrist. “And I won’t apologize… But I still want you to know how happy it makes me. That you waited for me.”

Mikleo blinked, suddenly surprised. But he was soon smiling at Sorey with such a loving expression that Sorey felt his cheeks heat up, all the way to the tips of his ears. “I’d do it again, you know. As long as you come back.”

Slowly, Sorey let Mikleo’s hand slide until he was grasping it from its back, guiding it gently towards his own face so Mikleo’s palm rested snuggly between Sorey’s hand and his cheek. Sorey had no doubt Mikleo could _feel_ the blush under his skin, but he didn’t mind.

It was time to stop waiting.

Not taking his eyes away from Mikleo’s, Sorey leaned forward. “I’ll always come back to you,” he whispered, and his head tilted naturally to the side as he came even closer, blond hair falling over his forehead and brushing against the slope of Mikleo’s nose.

“…You better,” Mikleo’s eyes fell down, to Sorey’s mouth. His lips parted when Sorey’s did the same, hearts beating fast and electricity cracking in the room. “I…”

Sorey closed his eyes. He had always known that he wanted to spend his life by Mikleo’s side. But somehow, it only dawned on him in that instant, in that moment at mere inches from kissing Mikleo, that this had been bound to happen since the beginning. That Mikleo’s hand belonged in his, that being this close to him was as easy as breathing. That nothing mattered more than this moment, in which everything seemed to be falling into place. Sorey and Mikleo, Mikleo and Sorey.

Together at la—

Sharp pain made them spring apart the moment their lips brushed together, the ache so acute that they never got to feel the other’s lips on theirs. Mikleo moved his hand away from Sorey’s cheek and to his mouth, eyes wide open as he stared at Sorey. Sorey wasn’t much better, either. His mind had gone blank with that pain, with that _crack_ between them, and he could do nothing now but gape back at Mikleo with his lips parted still.

So it fell on Mikleo to snap out of it first, the tips of his fingers still pressed against his own mouth when he exclaimed. “What— what was that!?”

Sorey blinked, his sluggish brain processing Mikleo’s words. He had been about to kiss Mikleo. He had been about to press his mouth against his and forget everything around himself. And Mikleo—

Mikleo what?

What had Mikleo been about to do?

But that didn’t really matter. Because something had cracked between them, making Sorey’s whole body buzz with energy and his lips still tingle with the aftershocks of the pain. And now Sorey could do nothing but blush furiously, moving his eyes away so as not to meet Mikleo’s own.

_He had been about to kiss Mikleo, for the love of—_

“Haha, that was so weird right?” Sorey started to babble, eyes still cast away even when he flinched because… was he talking about the pain or the almost-kiss? Not even Sorey knew. “I mean—“ he moved his hand to scratch the back of his head, and Sorey’s heart skipped a beat when he realized his hand felt suddenly cold, now that he wasn’t holding Mikleo’s. “That’s never happened before, has it? And we’ve touched a lot—! Not that we— I don’t mean—!“

From the corner of his eye, Sorey saw Mikleo move closer, hand falling away from his lips. “Sorey—“

“But, ah, you know what it reminded me of? Those times when we were kids and we would do something mischievous and Gramps would zap us with his—“

Sorey went tense. His mouth was left open as his brain caught up with his words, not a sound coming from his lips. And Mikleo seemed to be in the same state too, both of them with eyes open wide with surprise. They turned slowly to look at each other, any trace of shyness forgotten in favor of realization. That was it. It had been that all along.

It was—

“Lightning!!”

The word fell from both of their mouths, fast and excited, and suddenly they were on their feet, clinging to each other’s arms as they ran outside, where thick clouds turned Elysia dark now that the sun had finally set behind the mountains. Mikleo, nails digging into the fabric of Sorey’s sleeve, looked from the menacing clouds to Sorey as he made his friend’s arm shake, excitement lighting up his face.

If Sorey hadn’t been feeling the exact same excitement, he would have been mesmerized by the sight.

“Try it,” Mikleo ordered, sounding breathless and happy. “Try it, Sorey!”

Sorey closed his eyes, concentrating. He looked for the mana Mikleo and his friends had described so many times, the tendrils that would feel like extensions of himself, guiding him— And he found them, as easily as if he had done it a million times before, allowing his control to expand to the clouds that loomed over them. Sorey gasped, feeling his skin prickling, his own hair standing on end, and he reached out with his hand to grasp the power that beckoned him—

The darkness behind his eyelids turned blue with the light of a bolt, Sorey opening his eyes in time to see it running through the clouds like blood through veins before vanishing. The peaceful mountainsides returned to their usual darkness for a moment — and then another bolt followed, and another, sprouting at Sorey’s will from the clouds and painting traceries in the sky like there hadn’t been in a long time. It was so easy to call them forth that Sorey couldn’t understand how he hadn’t realized before that _this_ was his path, that this was his element. He couldn’t help but continue to make forms in the sky with his lightning as he laughed, his own excitement mirrored in the clouds.

Sorey could feel electricity in his teeth, under his skin. And his heart sped up at the realization that it had been _him_. He was the one illuminating Elysia with light that came from his very core.

Mikleo had told him about the beam of light that had sprouted from his resting place, his guiding light, but _this—_

He would never have imagined this.

“…I’m a light seraph,” Sorey whispered, making another bolt cross the clouds so he could see Mikleo’s amazed expression by its light.

“Just like Gramps,” Mikleo whispered back, squeezing his arm and turning to look at him as well.

The rest of the Elysians came out to enjoy the show little by little, their faces amazed and yearning. Sorey could understand them very well, and he was sure Mikleo did as well. The electric storm was bringing to everyone’s mind the spectacles Gramps use to do for them, for the tiny children that watched from the safety of their home as their gramps stood amidst a storm and spelled words for them in light in the sky.

Happy tears rushed to Sorey’s eyes as the last bolt died down, leaving the village in darkness once more.

“…Is it bad to consider this a last gift from him?” Sorey wondered, voice caught up. His fingers moved to grasp the hem of Mikleo’s shirt, holding it between the knuckles.

Next to him, Mikleo moved closer and sighed, resting his forehead on Sorey’s shoulder. “I’m sure this is exactly what it is, Sorey.”

Sorey sniffed. “Thank you, Mikleo.”

“… Could you do it again?” Mikleo asked after a pause, letting the silence wash over them both for a moment. Sorey could still see the lights every time he blinked, and his body still thrummed with the energy of the lightning, but there was nothing that shone brighter in that moment than Mikleo’s eyes right next to him. “Light up the sky for me, Sorey.”

The words sounded like so much more than their meaning, and Sorey felt his heart skip a beat. He moved his hand so he could twine his fingers through Mikleo’s and then, squeezing his hand softly, he turned skyward once more and summoned the mana that waited for him at the tips of his fingers.

The next crack of lightning made the sky burst in light.

Sorey felt like it was the signal for a new start.

 


End file.
